STARTING TOMORROW: Our Rhetoric, Ourselves!

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2022

How diverse democracies die: Over the past (let's say) ten years, rhetoric from the MAGA world has turned into a deeply disturbing anthropology lesson. 

The rhetoric is often jaw-dropping, as are the widespread beliefs. This rhetoric, and this capacity for unfounded belief, raises a question about the ability of us human beings to conduct our own political affairs.

Then too, we now have the remarkable rhetoric which increasingly emerges from our own blue tribe. Consider Brian Broome's recent opinion essay in the Washington Post.

Brian Broome, age roughly 52, is a good, decent person. His essay appeared in the aftermath of the Buffalo massacre, in which ten good and decent people were crazily shot and killed.

It's clear that Broome was upset by these murders. Stating the obvious, there's no reason why he shouldn't have been. 

Early in his essay, though, the peculiar rhetoric began—rhetoric which was disseminated to the public by the Washington Post. For example, Broome's third paragraph read like this:

BROOME (5/17/22): The alleged shooter, Payton Gendron, is a man who is reported to have been concerned about immigration and decreasing White birthrates. It’s the same concern that Tucker Carlson shares with his Fox News audience almost every night. Gendron isn’t mentally ill. He isn’t “troubled,” nor is he just a misguided teen. These are terms you will hear when he is discussed. The truth is that he’s simply hateful in the same way that right-wing politics have instructed him to be.

"Gendron isn’t mentally ill," Broome peculiarly said. According to Broome, the Buffalo shooter isn't even "troubled." 

(He left open the possibility that the shooter had been "misguided." But that was as far as he'd go.)

Regarding the claim about mental illness, Broome didn't say how he could possibly offer such an assessment—how he could possibly know such a thing. 

Discussions of "mental illness" involve a challenging set of concepts and distinctions. Broome has no apparent background in the field.

How in the world could Brian Broome know if the shooter is mentally ill (in some particular way)? There seems to be no way that Broome could possibly know such a thing—but in a MAGA-adjacent way, he just went ahead and said it.

Broome just went ahead and said it—and the Post put his statement in print.

In comments, quite a few liberal commenters called attention to the oddness of Broome's  unsupported psychiatric assessment. As for Broome, he moved on to some mind-reading work about Justice Alito's recent draft opinion:

BROOME (continuing directly): It is easy to draw a straight line between the hateful actions of white supremacists and popular right-wing conservatives. It seems that neither group can imagine a world where all people are equal. In their minds, one group must be on top. And the fear of losing the top spot has mutated into an ideology known as the great replacement theory...[T]his fear-fueled, binary thinking will continue to bring harm to people of color.

The same sort of thinking about race and birthrates now dominates the conservative Supreme Court. The leaked draft opinion isn’t about protecting babies. It is about protecting Whiteness. Specifically, White babies.

Say what? Alito's draft opinion is "specifically" about "protecting white babies?" 

For the record, the draft opinion doesn't specifically say any such thing. But in a more general sense, how could Broome possibly think that he knew something like that?

How could Broome know such a thing? In what follows, he fails to explain. Instead, he offers the type of sweeping, unsupported rhetoric our blue tribe has increasingly come to enjoy:

BROOME (continuing directly): Many others have pointed out that if Republicans really cared about babies and children, they’d help provide help for poor infants, child care, health care, better funding for schools, and the like. But their concern is not about babies and children in general—only certain babies. The Supreme Court draft decision is about protecting what conservatives believe is a diminishing demographic and their most valuable resource: White people.

For the record, Broome now seems to be reporting what all Republicans think. According to Broome, "Their concern is not about babies and children in general—only certain babies."

Once again, Broome doesn't explain how he knows such a thing. He then mind-reads, once again, about the motives which lie behind the Alito draft opinion:

The opinion "is about protecting what conservatives believe is a diminishing demographic and their most valuable resource: White people." Or at least, so Broome declares.

How could Broome know that? He seems to feel no need to explain. Instead, he gives Post readers a further look at his various "beliefs:" 

BROOME (continuing directly): Some will accuse me here of indulging in conspiracy theories—or of believing the worst in people. But, as a Black American living in a racist society, I don’t find it difficult to believe in the worst in people. One tries not to. But we see evidence of it every day in our lived experience. And we have firsthand knowledge of how important Whiteness is to some people. We’ve seen how they conflate Whiteness with righteousness and innocence. And we’ve lived with how the power that this culture bestows upon Whiteness affects us negatively. It is my belief that conservatives couldn’t care less about whether or not mothers of color terminate pregnancies.

The real agenda here is to boost White birthrates, because among the biggest fears of conservatives is the fear of being outnumbered.

According to Broome, the "real agenda" behind Alito's opinion involves the desire to boost white birthrates. This would eliminate (white) conservatives' fear of being outnumbered in the future as demographic change proceeds.

Under the circumstances, this strikes us as a remarkably odd statistical theory. As best we can tell from the basic numbers and from the basic sociology, eliminating abortion would increase birthrates in "minority" communities much more than the birthrate of whites.

You can Google the data yourselves—or you can read this recent AP report, courtesy of The PBS Newshour. In this separate report, the Guttmacher Institute offers this brief overview:

"This much is true: In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women."

It's hard to imagine how five Justices could actually think that overturning Roe v. Wade—or eliminating abortion rights altogether—would be a way to turn back the clock on demographic change. But that's what Brian Broome has said—and the Washington Post chose to print it.

During these Trump-adjacent years, rhetoric from the nation's red tribe has becoming increasingly illogical, unfounded, unhinged, bizarre. Something else has become remarkably clear:

We humans are capable of believing almost any claim, no matter how illogical or unhinged, at times of tribal conflict. Sadly, as these Days of Trump move on, our own blue rhetoric increasingly seems to come from a Trump-adjacent realm. 

Brian Broome is a good, decent person. That said, large chunks of his recent essay read like the sort of thing you used to hear in corners bars, though only if you were unlucky enough to be physically present.

Today, newspapers like the Washington Post—and "cable news" channels like MSNBC—are increasingly ready to publish and broadcast such rhetoric. The rhetoric goes out to us the people—and we the people will be inclined to believe and parrot its various statements and claims.

(Cynics say this practice is good for the corporate bottom line. These cynics may well have a point.)

In conclusion, consider this:

In his new book, Professor Mounk warns about the historical difficulty of maintaining "[racially] diverse democracies." According to Mounk, crazy rhetoric from each of two warring sides can help doom such fragile attempts at human governance.

The rhetoric we approve and advance helps define our selves. In this morning's Washington Post, an opinion essay appears beneath this headline:

Disturbing, even inaccurate speech must be protected

Trust us! At present, the U.S. army isn't big enough to protect all that unfettered speech!

In all honesty, nothing is going to change the decline in the rhetoric—in the logic and the rationality—of our own flailing blue tribe. Even so, we'll explore the decline in our tribe's rhetoric during the course of the week.

Does our rhetoric really define our selves? In the face of the Crazy from major elements of MAGA world, is our tribe's devolving rhetoric really the tool with which we should respond?

Tomorrow: Stephanie Ruhle agrees


67 comments:

  1. "STARTING TOMORROW: Our Rhetoric, Ourselves!"

    Today's headline is a play on a book title from the 1970s: "Our bodies, Ourselves." It is a feminist book that discusses women's health care issues and the need for women to take responsibility for their own bodies and to understand how their bodies work.

    Ignoring the feminist content and the importance of this book during that time period, Somerby blithely co-opts it by substituting the word "rhetoric". Women's bodies are important to them now, in the face of the new court decision. Trivializing that shows disrespect for that issue and for women themselves.

    It is outrageous that Somerby thinks he can just ignore what things mean to other people and borrow whatever he wants to use for his own purposes, trampling on this important issue! But this is what Somerby does.

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  2. "in which ten good and decent people were crazily shot and killed."

    Somerby has no idea who the people were who were shot in Buffalo. Neither did the shooter, Gendron, who selected them for their skin color. Somerby does not know whether those killed were good and decent or not. Pretending to know them, to know anything about them, is offensive. It is Somerby's way of not caring what they were actually like as human beings.

    Similarly, Somerby labels this a crazy shooting. Somerby ignores the motives of the killer, fails to consider whether they made sense from the killer's perspective, and instead labels the shooting crazy, without having any idea why it happened. Like Republicans, Somerby wishes to evade responsibility for the fact that Gendron had access to guns, his manifesto was derived from a growing white supremacist movement encouraged by Tucker Carlson and the Republican party, which has been espousing the same replacement theory as the killer himself (based on his manifesto). Instead Somerby diagnoses this as crazy (which is not even a diagnostic term to mental health workers). I'm surprise Somerby doesn't call Gendron a good, decent person too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So if Somerby had written “ten people were shot and killed, some of whom may have been good and decent, but some of whom may have been real assholes”, that would have demonstrated a higher degree of his caring about them as human beings?

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    2. Spock,
      Somerby saves his caring for the “real victims” of the Buffalo shooting. Right-wingers who pushed the Great Replacement Theory.

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    3. The point is that within the context of what happened it does not matter whether they were good people or bad people. Somerby making a distinction where none was needed is him putting his thumb on the narrative scale.

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    4. When I characterize what Somerby or anyone else says, I make it a rule to quote them.

      I notice you don't. It leaves the reader wondering if there's any evidence to support your statement or if you're just carrying a grudge.

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    5. 6:28,

      I agree, and it's the sort of thing Somerby scolds liberal journalists over.

      Having said that, it played no role in the points he was tryinig to make.

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    6. Somerby doesn’t scold journalists for not quoting. He scolds them for failure to repeat Trump’s self-serving lies.

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  3. "nor is he just a misguided teen"

    "(He left open the possibility that the shooter had been "misguided." But that was as far as he'd go.)"

    Somerby seems to think that the word "nor" means Broome is saying that Gendron was misguided, not that he is denying that he was misguided. I think that is a clear misreading of what Broome was saying. He was listing the things Gendron was being called in the media and explicitly denying them. That means Broome was saying Gendron WAS NOT "just a misguided teen" as the right was trying to claim.

    We know that Somerby's reading is wrong because Broome goes on to explain what he thinks Gendron was -- and he doesn't say he was misguided. He says he was a follower and believer in Replacement theory, as spread by Tucker Carlson and the right wing.

    Then, irony of ironies, Somerby says that Broome is not qualified to assess the mental health of Gendron, after Somerby himself has done so, just as he has done with others (Trump, Roy Moore, Rittenhouse,Carlson, Giuliani).

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  4. "For the record, the draft opinion doesn't specifically say any such thing. "

    However, the white supremacists writing about replacement theory HAVE said such things, explicitly.

    Alito does talk about the market for adoptable babies, in his footnotes.

    Broome didn't make the ideas he attributes to Republicans (no one writing anything about either political party is saying that ALL Democrats or ALL Republicans believe the same things -- the limitation SOME is implicit in everyone's writing about political beliefs). Republicans have been talking about the things Broome describes, from Tucker Carlson to MTG. Republicans have been attributing the desire to outnumber them to a Democratic plot. Somerby should not be pretending that Broome made up his assertions when they have emerged from the statements of Tucker Carlson and others on the right.

    This is gaslighting -- pretending that Republicans have not been conveying replacement theory to its supporters. Broome is describing what the right has been saying -- not making things up about Republicans. They believe this stuff on the right.

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    Replies
    1. “Republicans have been attributing the desire to outnumber them to a Democratic plot.”

      Yes. But they haven’t been proposing the repeal of Roe v. Wade as a solution, as Broome strongly, falsely, and quite illogically implies.


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    2. Of course they have. The same people who believe in Replacement Theory have been working to limits women's choice. It is always men who are most vehemently anti-choice.

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    3. Two separate ideas in play here:

      1) proposing the repeal of Roe v. Wade for moral/theological reasons;
      2) proposing the repeal of Roe v. Wade as a solution for Great Replacement problems.

      The first is done all the time. The second, if it's done at all, is done by people working at cross-purposes with their own goals, and thus wouldn't make much sense.

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    4. theological - no, there is no theological basis for being anti choice, abortion is not mentioned in the Bible

      moral - no, this strains credulity, most abortions are done at the zygote/embryo stage, a non sentient non viable clump of cells

      furthermore neither of these two notions hold water since conservatives who now oppose choice, before Roe, generally supported abortions - Roe was even decided on by the conservatives in the Supreme Court.

      No, conservatives turned against abortion only when it was expedient, only when they were able to weaponize it in the fight against desegregating society.

      What conservatives really care about is dominance, and their preferred methods of manifesting that urge for dominance is sexism and racial oppression.

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    5. The point is not whether theological and moral bases are correct, but whether abortion opponents think they are correct, and use them.

      In any case, my point made at 1:18 stands unrefuted.

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    6. I think your points are beside the point, which is also the criticism of Somerby's criitque.

      Whether anti choice people think their rationales are correct or if they are being disingenuous was addressed - and with widely known and repeated points: conservatives generally supported choice prior and post Roe, they were the ones that decided on Roe in the Supreme Court, they only changed their tune when it was found they could weaponize the issue to advance racial oppression.

      Your point is so limited in its scope that you can defend it technically, but to what end? I can only read the quotes of the opinion piece that Somerby offers, and the only specific phrase that does not square is "The real agenda here is to boost White birthrates". Yet this is rhetoric in an opinion piece where the general thrust seems accurate: Republicans are obsessed with Replacement theory, they do promote racial oppression, and the real motivation behind much of what they do, including Roe, is racial oppression.

      I would not be too proud that your point stands technically unrefuted, you made a point that is besides the point, and that is pretty disgusting considering the seriousness of the issue.

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  5. Gendron’s piece, Bob fails to mention, IS clearly
    marked “opinion.” The rest is fair enough.
    It should be observed for years Bob has noted (excused?) the pronouncements of Trump as signs of mental illness, and made fanciful assertions that they may be excusable
    because he may actually believe them.
    Even here, in his standard disclaimer
    (before going after bad behavior on
    the left) he laments MAGA in general
    without attaching any guilt to
    President Trump.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Gendron’s piece, Bob fails to mention, IS clearly marked “opinion.”

      Except that he doesn't fail to mention that it is opinion.

      Another dumb misreading.

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    2. Greg is a complete retard.

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    3. It isn’t Gendron’s piece. It is Broome’s.

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    4. Anonn at 2:54, more cheap insults from the right, ho hum. Extra credit for berating the mentally ill.

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    5. People are going to insult you when you make completely stupid claims that are demonstrably false like you did at 10;10.

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    6. Calling anyone you disagree with a "retard" is not only mocking those with mental disabilities, but it demonstrates the kind of lack of empathy that characterizes Republicans (and trolls).

      If Greg said something "demonstrably" false, then go ahead and demonstrate how he was wrong.

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    7. I did already, retard.

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    8. No, you didn’t.

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    9. OK - here you go - let me demonstrate for you - Greg said "Bob fails to mention the piece is clearly
      marked “opinion.”

      Bob said "In this morning's Washington Post, an opinion essay appears beneath this headline".

      This is why Greg's claim is demonstrably false. Bob does mention the piece is clearly marked “opinion.”


      See now, moron?

      Delete
  6. "But, as a Black American living in a racist society, "

    And here we see the reason why Somerby has singled out Broome for attention, why he is trying to pin Replacement Theory on Broome and not the Republicans, why Somerby is pretending that Broome is paranoid.

    Somerby dismisses real statements as "rhetoric" today. He is perhaps hoping to convince readers that this is anthropologic posing, not real belief on the right. But when Gendron and others are shooting minority group members, whom they have specifically targeted for extermination, it becomes harder for Somerby to say that these are just words.

    Can Somerby really claim that Broome, who he has called a good, decent person, doesn't have the right to self-defense? Gendron, Carlson, the right-wing, and Somerby are all responsible for the violence they are condoning. This isn't Broome's fault.

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  7. "Over the past (let's say) ten years, rhetoric from the MAGA world has turned into a deeply disturbing anthropology lesson. "

    What is this "MAGA world" you speak of, dear Bob?

    Is it all the normal ordinary working people, everyone who doesn't belong to your liberal cult?

    It is, isn't it, dear Bob?

    And what is this rhetoric that disturbs you, dear Bob? Is it the normal words ordinary people say, that are different from your liberal cult's talking points?

    It is, isn't it, dear Bob?

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    Replies
    1. The liberal cult is easy to spot They're the ones who didn't try to overthrow the United States Capitol because black people's votes counted in a Presidential election.

      Delete
  8. The tie between Alito's brief and white supremacist theory lies in the defense of white womanhood, which is deemed necessary to prevent the white race from vanishing under the onslaught of people of color, who are winning a demographic war. Those who believe in Replacement Theory are opposed to abortion for white women, opposed to contraception too. They want white women to have and raise lots of white babies in order to preserve white supremacy through numbers. This is explicitly stated in their propaganda. It is part of their goals. To reach their aims, they think they must control white women, to prevent them from intermarrying with brown/black people, and to keep them at home and away from temptation and pollution. Protecting the purity of whtie women is part of their creed.

    Either Somerby is unfamiliar with their beliefs or he is deliberately distorting them in his criticism of Broome. You choose which. Neither reflects favorably on Somerby.

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    Replies
    1. anon 10:18, did you skip over the part citing a study that said black women were 5 times more likely than white women to get an abortion? If that is true, then banning abortion will disproportionately increase the black population. In fact, that's what a lot of liberal commentators are saying - that the decision hurts black women because they won't be able to get legal abortions (while the more affluent white women will more easily be able to travel to blue states - or to other countries - in order to get abortions. You somehow manage to ignore this point.

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    2. The white race will never have to worry about "vanishing".

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    3. They have other plans for diminishing the numbers of black people.

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    4. AC/MA the only thing coherent about your comments is your willingness to lie or mislead in your sad attempts to win an argument.

      You are the laughingstock of the TDH comment section.

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    5. anon 6:43 - you say this over and over. You've never pointed out anything I've ever said that justifies your slurs. You are the living proof of TDH's observation that 'our' side ain't so perfect in i8ts reasoning. As I've said, there is I see no point in lying or deceiving here; what would be the purpose - that's why it's not something I do.

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    6. AC/MA,
      Have you really forgotten all the lies you pushed about the testimony at the George Zimmerman trial, or are you the member of our tribe Bob was referring to?

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    7. Forced sterilization of black women was common in the not too distant past, just kbefore the MLK Civil Rights movement. The first priority of white supremacists is controlling white women’s sexuality.

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    8. anon 7:49, do tell what "lies" I told. You use the same rhetorical trick that Trump always uses - "have I really forgotten all the lies I pushed" - skipping over the part about what the alleged lies were. You aren't able to apply reason, so I suppose it's useless to discuss anything with you.

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    9. AC/MA you lied about "punching" and "pummeling" and other testimony, you lied about the jury. These were directly demonstrable lies.

      You also lie about being a lawyer and a Dem, these are made clear from how utterly nonsensical your comments are on such topics. Furthermore those here making good faith comments do not go around offering unsolicited details of their personal life; "I'm a lawyer, so listen here..." "I'm a dem, so listen here..." nobody says these kind of ridiculous things, other than you and the other lonely right wing trolls, we make our points and let them stand.

      You lied just now as well: "You've never pointed out anything I've ever said" This HAS been pointed out to you, repeatedly, so that quote is a lie.

      You have no credibility here. Nobody here is interested in your stale notions of hate.

      Delete
  9. Somerby recommend Mounk, a both-siderist no labels "can't-we-all-get-along?" appeasement enthuasiast, who thinks that the left's rhetoric is driving right-wing craziness. No thank you.

    I don't believe that our denocracy can be defended by ignoring what is happening on the right. I think truth needs to be defended, booking banning, lynching and shootings of black people need to be prevented, prosecuted, and the alt-right needs to be driven back underground. That isn't going to happen if the left backs off of its responsibility to maintain its own sanity. Flaccid centrists do not have the will to protect democracy. It won't die because those on the left hold onto their values. It will die because fascists on the right are allowed to take over our government and impose their totalitarian fantasies on the apathetic middle.

    I am going to fight for democracy. Somerby can strike his Cassandra pose and tell us that it is the left's fault that the right has gone batshit crazy. It won't be the truth and truth matters now, more than ever.

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  10. The only thing Bob has been correct about in the last 5 years is that the Right are reactionaries.

    ReplyDelete
  11. If people used birth control, there would hardly ever be a need to make a decision one way or the other on abortion.

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    Replies
    1. 11:58- Really? That must be why the right wing is opposed to birth control and sex education. The “right” to birth control is on just as shaky a constitutional ground as abortion, if you think about Alito’s opinion.

      “ A Republican Senate candidate endorsed by Peter Thiel is campaigning on a pledge to vote only for judges who oppose the SCOTUS ruling establishing the right to birth control”
      https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-gop-senate-candidate-blake-masters-campaigning-against-birth-control-2022-5

      And do you believe birth control, including the Catholic approved “rhythm” method are failsafe?

      Delete
  12. Mass shootings generate good ratings and as such they have also become battlegrounds for how to frame the issue to score political points or to defend against such.

    For the Democrats, the issues are gun control and racism (where applicable).

    For the Republicans, the issues are mental health and early detection.

    The other big issue with media reporting on these is that to mention the shooter's name and to show content on their website, their "manifesto", etc. - it has been shown to incentivize the next mass killing. Any media still doing this is extremely irresponsible.

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    Replies
    1. Name an initiative, a bill, supported and/or passed by Republicans that did anything at all to address “mental health.”

      Delete
    2. mh,
      At the state level, Republicans address mental health by slashing mental health budgets.
      The media knows Republicans have never made a good faith argument, but they can’t say so because their taxes may go up.

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    3. The reason Republicans frame the issue as mental health is largely to avoid the framing the Democrats present. The reason both parties frame these events as they do, as with anything, is primarily to attempt to generate votes and voter turnout. I thought that was understood.

      The parties don't expect to curb mass shootings with policy changes and realize that even if that occurred there is no way to convince the public it is true.

      So, what we get stuck with is a cynical use of these events to push political talking points.

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    4. Not expecting to curb mass shootings is the opposite of what Australia did after the Port Arthur shootings.
      America fuck? Yeah.

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    5. Tim Fischer was leader of the National party and Howard’s deputy prime minister in the Coalition government, charged with persuading sceptical country voters to support, or at least accept, reforms. “Port Arthur was our Sandy Hook,” he says. “Port Arthur we acted on. The USA is not prepared to act on their tragedies.”

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    6. The Democrats are certainly not above posturing and empty rhetoric. But they do at least try to enact legislation to curb gun tragedies and to fund public programs for mental health, for example. The Republicans defeat every one of them, and then they and bothsiderist commenters at TDH come along to complain that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. It’s a perverse view. As to the view that the public has is unconvinceable, then perhaps we should just give up trying. Is that what you’re suggesting? I would also ask why there is such intransigence against gun control, or funding mental health, or Roe, for that matter, when polls show that a majority support the liberal view.

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    7. Comment at 4:24 was mine and was directed at 2:20

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    8. Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. in some ways, they are worse. If you haven't noticed, our whole country is terrible. We are a war-mongering, colonialist empire who steals anything we want and ravages and kills anyone who gets in our way. Enjoy your cheeseburger dumbass. You're supporting a colonialist, warmongering, completely debauched and compromised, amoral political party on the basis that the other party is worse without looking at the bigger picture of their combined amorality and viciousness.

      Delete
    9. The US never had colonies. We acquired colonies of other colonial countries after wars but didn’t engage in colonialism ourselves. But you be you.

      Historically, Republicans start wars and Democrats end them. Did you learn history from a comic book, or are you part of a Russian troll farm like Mao?

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    10. Republicans have consistently opposed passing laws or restrictions to keep guns away from the mentally ill.

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    11. "Historically, Republicans start wars and Democrats end them."

      OH MY GOD!!!! HOWLER OF THE CENTURY.

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    12. Name calling isn't an argument.

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    13. 10:17 You're avoiding the issue. "Historically, Republicans start wars and Democrats end them" is wrong. And ignorant as hell!

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    14. If you consider my statement wrong, list some wars with who started them and who ended them. Don't just call other people names.

      1. Iraq war -- started by George W. Bush (R) and withdrawal completed by Barak Obama (D) in 2011.

      2. WWII -- started in 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland, US entered after being bombed by Japan in 1941, both during FDR's terms (D), although it is hard to stay he started either. Ended by Harry S. Truman (D) in 1945.

      3. Korean War -- started in 1950 under Harry S. Truman (D) but was fundamentally a civil war after the Japanese colony was liberated at the end of WWII. Technically it has not ended but an armistice was declared in 1953 under Harry S. Truman (D).

      4. Vietnam War -- started in 1955 under Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) and ended in 1975 under Gerald Ford (R) who took over for Richard Nixon (R). Arguably, the largely Democratic peace movement motivated Nixon to withdraw from an unpopular conflict.

      5. WWI -- war started in Europe in 1913 and Woodrow Wilson (D) was initially neutral but entered the war in 1914. Wilson (D) ended the war in 1918.

      6. Spanish-American War -- started by William McKinley (R) in April, 1898 following the sinking of the Maine in Cuba (thought to have been done in order to justify war). Ended by McKinley (R) in December 1898. Much territory was gained for US.

      Afghanistan War -- Started in October 2001 by George W. Bush (R) and ended in August 2021 by Joseph Biden (D)

      I think this substantiates my claim. If you contest it, please supply facts.

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    15. Only two of your examples are of Republicans starting wars and Democrats ending them. What about the wars Obama started? I guess you must be crazy.


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    16. Vietnam was on LBJ: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/vietnam-lbj-pleiku-haunts-democrats-115259/

      I realize you are mentally ill though. I hope you can get some help.

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    17. Obama's illegal, murderous wars:

      https://www.csis.org/analysis/obama-administration-ending-two-wars-engagement-five-%E2%80%93-risk-sixth

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    18. Forget Nam, forget Demigod Barry. The past has past.

      Right now, today, with the Veg installed only two years ago, the deep state has already started a war (The War) with the Russian Federation. Playing the exciting (to them) game of nuclear brinkmanship.

      ...and here's the infamous racist-fascist Noam Chomsky:

      “Fortunately, there is one statesman in the United States and Europe who has made a very sensible statement about how you can solve the crisis. Namely, by facilitating negotiations instead of undermining them, and moving towards establishing some kind of accommodation in Europe in which there are no military alliances — which is mutual accommodation [...] So going back to the one Western statesman — he didn’t mention all of this but he suggested something similar: Move toward negotiations and diplomacy instead of escalating the war, try to see if you can bring about an accommodation which would be roughly along these lines. His name is Donald J Trump,” Chomsky concluded.

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  13. “our own blue rhetoric increasingly seems to come from a Trump-adjacent realm.”

    Somerby seems to be identifying Broome with the blue tribe, and his opinion as some kind of standard “blue” rhetoric. But Broome has quite clearly expressed some disdain for Democrats:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/27/black-americans-political-affiliation-identity/

    Plus, as ac/ma points out above, the more common liberal concern about overturning Roe is that black women, and poor women in general, will not have access to abortion , unlike more affluent women. Broome is more of an outlier with his opinion here that overturning Roe is an attempt to prevent blacks from replacing whites.

    But hey, he isn’t a Republican, his view was published in the Washington Post, thus he must be cited as a spokesman for liberalism.

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    1. mh - that piece is literally about supporting Democrats. What is wrong with you?

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    2. Yeah, Broome supports Democrats because he can’t stand Republicans. That doesn’t change the fact that his view is an outlier amongst liberals.

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  14. Broome isn’t engaged in reasoning about white supremacy — he is describing what he (and many others) see happening.

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